Tips

I love the taste of almond butter in this recipe. It adds a fantastic creaminess, richness and body to the fudge. You can use any nut butter you like in this raw vegan chocolate fudge, including cashew butter, brazil nut butter, hazelnut butter or even peanut butter. Each will add a slightly different taste, so experiment with it if you like and see which one you like best.

If you want to make this raw vegan chocolate fudge nut-free, you can substitute the almond butter with a seed butter. So far I’ve tried it with sunflower seed butter and pepita butter (pumpkin seed), but you could also try tahini (sesame seed butter) or soy nut butter as well. The stronger the seed butter flavour, the more likely it is to clash, so again experiment and see which one you like best. I found the sunflower butter to be nice, but the pepita butter was a bit strong (as much as I love my pepita butter).

Coconut butter (or coconut paste) is just dried, shredded coconut that has been processed (in a food processor) long enough to turn into a butter. As with all nut and seed butters, coconut goes through various stages on the way to turning into butter, so if you decide to try making it yourself, don’t get discouraged – just stick at it and you will get there eventually. You can also buy coconut butter at health food shops.

If you can’t be bothered making or sourcing coconut butter you can use coconut oil instead. I’ve tried making this recipe both ways, and it works with either. I actually prefer the coconut butter version because it’s less oily, but it’s still very tasty with coconut oil (and tastes vaguely of chocolate crackles). So it’s definitely worth making even if all you have on hand is coconut oil.

I use raw cacao powder for the chocolate element in all of my recipes, but if all you have is cocoa powder (which is just roasted cocoa beans), then go ahead and use it, as it will taste very much the same. Just make sure you use unsweetened cocoa powder or your fudge will turn out insanely sweet (which might work for some I guess).

If you’re not a fan of chocolate, I’m pretty sure this recipe would work with carob as well. I haven’t made it myself, so I can’t say for sure, but it’s a pretty forgiving fudge recipe, so I’d be willing to bet that carob would taste great, especially in combination with the nut butter flavour.

I’ve been using dates wherever possible recently in my recipes, because they’re the closest I can get to a whole food sweetener. To make the date paste that I used in this recipe, I just blended a cup of dates (240g) with a 1/3 of a cup + 1 tbsp (100g) of water until it was smooth. I use this date paste in place of liquid sweeteners in recipes wherever I can.

If you don’t want to use date paste, then you can just substitute your preferred liquid sweetener, like coconut nectar, agave nectar or maple syrup. Just be aware that each of them will change the flavour slightly, so be willing to play around until you get a balance you prefer.

This fudge is not overly sweet, because I’ve been training my taste buds to get used to less sweet dishes. So if you like your chocolate treats a little sweeter, just increase the sweetener a little at a time until it suits your taste buds.

Vanilla bean powder is just fresh vanilla beans air-dried and ground into a powder using a spice blender or coffee grinder. You can make your own or you can buy it from your local health food shop. If you can’t get your hands on any of this, you can just scrape out a fresh vanilla bean or two into the mix, or add 1-2 tsp of vanilla extract.

I just press the finished mix into a plastic container that’s a suitable size and shape. The mix is pretty firm, so it will squash easily into any container, and once you freeze it, it will take on the shape of your container. So have a play with different containers until you find one that makes a good thickness and shape.

I have tried taking this out of the freezer after one hour (Impatient? Me?) but it’s not quite long enough for the mix to really firm up properly. You can get away with it if you’re in a hurry – all you get is a bit of mix left on the container and a slightly less precise cut – but try to leave it for at least two hours.

You can store this in the freezer instead of the fridge if you prefer, but I prefer the taste and mouth feel of raw vegan chocolate fudge that’s been refrigerated. So once I’ve chopped it up, I throw it into a container an the fridge, and naturally make frequent trips to eat it over the course of a day (so addictive!)

Variations

Of course, you don’t have to make this raw vegan chocolate fudge into a slice. That’s just my quick and dirty approach. You could definitely roll this into balls and roll them in a bit of coconut, and leave them in the freezer to firm up. I just don’t have the patience for that, but I’m sure they’d be very popular.

You don’t have to use coconut as the inclusion in this raw vegan coconut fudge. You could definitely swap out the 50g of shredded coconut for 50g of chopped nuts, like cashews, walnuts, hazelnuts, pecans or brazil nuts. I haven’t tried this myself, because I love the whole “Bounty Bar” experience that the coconut provides, but the fudge is definitely the right consistency to hold its own with any inclusions you want to try.

My inspiration

You mean, apart from my relentless chocolate cravings?

It’s true, I have a topsy-turvy, passionate relationship with chocolate. There are times when I can go for ages without even thinking about it, and then suddenly I find myself craving it like crazy.

I’m a big fan of listening to my body – that’s how I got to where I am today with my health and wellbeing – so it’s great to finally have a recipe that can satisfy my cravings with minimal effort (and clean-up) and only a couple of hours patience.

I adapted this recipe from Vegan Tasmania’s Raw Vegan Chocolate Coconut Slice, adding the nut butter for that lovely creaminess and switching to as many whole foods as I could manage.

I love how simple this recipe is to make. In fact it’s so simple that you could get your kids to make it for you. Of course, they’ll probably also want to eat it for you as well, so you’ll have to decide if that’s worth the risk.

But honestly, if it’s a choice between this and a highly-processed, sugar-packed chocolate bar from the shops, I’d go for this every time.

Wouldn’t you?

Resources

If you want to learn more about wholefoods, what they are and what it all means, here’s a couple of places you can start:

Hi Nikki,
These taste great. I’ve made them with honey, and agave. All tasted great. The only problems I am having is the servings say 32. I am getting around 10 and that’s doubling the rest. Is 32 a typo? Also, they don’t pop out of the mold. I am using a glass baking dish.

My favourite cookbooks

My favourite kitchen gadgets

Having the right gadgets has totally changed my experience in the kitchen.

High-speed blender

I use my Vitamix blender at least 2-3 times EVERY day. It's fast, so versatile and super quick and easy to clean. I couldn't live without mine. I absolutely love it!

Food processor

I use my powerful food processor three or four times a week, for making nut butters, desserts, sauces, burgers and more. It's great for large batches and dishes that need texture and just makes "cooking" so much faster.

Dehydrator

I use my 5-tray Excalibur dehydrator once or twice a week, for crackers, breads, biscuits, cakes or even just for thawing things. It does an awesome job and makes eating raw SO much easier.

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